


Happy Orange Cat

by HugeAlienPie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Author Has Tenuous Relationship With Science, Canon Character of Color, Canon Gay Character, Canon Queer Character of Color, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, That's A Lot Of Firsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12148290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: Devoting your life to studying soulmates and soulmarks in no way means you've got a damned clue when it comes to your own soulmate situation.





	Happy Orange Cat

**Author's Note:**

> In case you couldn't tell, I _looove_ soulmate fics. I especially enjoy considering the scientific and sociological implications of a world where we can soulmarks and other such tropes exist. Thus the fields of Evolutionary Thaumatology and Soulmate Genetics were born. I'm sure I'll return to this topic or something like it at some point in the future. Thanks as always to [the_wordbutler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler) for being an exuberant sounding board.

_Soulmate mine, when first we meet,_  
_Our Marks will Settle, still and sweet._  
_And when in love we come to be,_  
_Color blooms for all to see._

–Traditional American nursery rhyme

*

Danny can't recall when or how the habit started. By now he knows he's edging into superstition or even compulsion territory, but it's hard to break himself of the pattern.

He checks his soulmark. Right now it looks like a sepia island rising out of (or sinking into?) a turbulent sepia sea. He rubs the tips of his index and middle fingers over the Argent Institute insignia on the nameplate that reads

DR. M. STILINSKI  
SOULMARK GENETICS  
Unmarked Populations

Only then does he knock and enter on Stiles' muffled invitation.

Stiles looks up and beams. The way his face lights up hits Danny in the solar plexus. "Danny!" he says delightedly. Well, Danny's pretty sure that's what he's said. The extra muffling to Stiles' voice, it turns out, is the two highlighters, one yellow, one blue, he has sticking out of his mouth. The hand he waves at Danny holds a pink and a green highlighter as well.

Danny shakes his head as he smiles back. "Stilinski, what are you doing to my data sets?"

Stiles spits out the highlighters, and his smile takes on a grumpier cast. "If you wrote your data sets in English and not ancient Atlantean—"

"Yeah, yeah." As fun as this argument usually is, Danny's on a mission today. He crosses the office until he's standing behind the visitor chair and holds out one of the plastic sandwich bags in his hand. "Ethan apology cookies."

Stiles sets down his other two highlighters and puts on his glasses. Danny swallows. He may have a _thing_ about Stiles' glasses. Stiles' gaze scans along the length of Danny's body before coming back to intently study his face. Danny forces down his squirms. "Ethan," Stiles says slowly, "made apology cookies." His voice carries every drop of his disbelief loud and clear.

Danny rubs the back of his head. "No, I made cookies. To apologize for Ethan."

Stiles leans back in his chair. It's like he's flipped a switch inside himself, and he's just normal levels of intensity again. Which, since it's Stiles, are pretty high, but after knowing him since college, Danny can mostly handle it.

Danny shakes the bag. "Peanut butter chocolate chip?"

Stiles grins and pushes out of his chair, leaning up and across his desk to grab the bag. For a second Danny feels like he might go further, might push right into Danny's space and kiss him. But he drops back into his chair (mostly without incident; he'd groused for days, but taking away his rolly chair was one of the best decisions Lydia had ever made) and smiles. "You do make a mean peanut butter chocolate chip," he says. "Thanks."

"Yeah." Danny hesitates. He'd love to stay and chat like he usually does, but at the same time, staying and chatting seems like a terrible idea if he wants to get any work done or protect his heart. "I should go. One more delivery to make." He shakes his three remaining bags.

Stiles counts them and grins. "The Guinea Pigs?"

Danny nods. "I stopped by Lydia's office earlier, but they weren't back yet. Hinkley today?"

"Who knows anymore? Besides them."

"Maybe not even them." Danny drums his fingers once agains the back of the chair and then turns. "So, I'll see you around."

Stiles gestures around the chaos of his office—largely illusory, because Stiles can always find what he's looking for among the harrowingly teetering piles on his desk and in his bookshelves. The disorganization is a ploy to discourage snooping. "You know where to find me."

Danny almost gets out of the room without saying anything else. But Ethan had been particularly cutting toward Stiles' research, and toward Stiles himself. Or maybe Danny's more sensitive to Ethan's foot-in-mouth disease when Stiles is the victim of its symptoms. "Listen," Danny says, "I really am sorry about Ethan."

Stiles' face twists in a grimace. "Hey, no," he says, "no need to apologize to me. I get it."

He's not sure Stiles _does_ , but he nods. "Yeah. I mean, things with Ethan are..."

Stiles holds up a hand. "I mean it, Danny. Please. You don't have to explain." He sounds... hurt. Like understanding why Danny's standing here apologizing for his boyfriend being a dick pains him more than Ethan's original comments had.

Waving a resigned goodbye, Danny makes his way up the hall and around the corner toward the only office in the department with a window. As he rounds the corner, he sees two pairs of large feet tangled together like tendrils of ivy at the end of long legs sprawled in front of the desk, one in battered work boots, the other in polished dress shoes. He rubs that nameplate, too, though there's no point in checking his soulmark here.

DR. L. MARTIN  
HEAD OF SOULMARK GENETICS  
Multiple Partner Marks and Supernatural Populations

Danny sticks his head into the room and grins at the exhausted looks on his friends' faces. He hates to see them suffer, but they _could_ say no to the people who want to study them. And they come back with the _best_ stories.

"What was with the rubber cement?" Jordan is asking—whining, honestly—rubbing the fingers of his right hand together. The fingers of his left hand are laced with Derek's, their arms hanging together in the space between the chairs.

"I don't know," Derek says, "but it felt gross."

"That's why I didn't let them do it to me," Lydia says primly.

"Hinkley won't like that," Danny observes from the doorway.

Lydia raises an eyebrow. "Hinkley was lucky to have us," she says.

"By the way," Danny says casually, biting back his grin, "I read Harris's op-ed in _Soulmarks_."

Derek and Jordan turn twin glares of betrayal on him. Jordan flips him off. Derek actually flashes his eyes, which hasn't intimidated Danny since—well, _ever_.

Lydia's eyes are bright with righteous indignation. "Adrian Harris is a fuckwit and a hack, and he misused the phrase 'begging the question.' I hope he chokes on his own greasy hair. _Soulmarks_ —" She draws out the syllables so she can pile up the disdain. "—has always been sensationalist claptrap. It isn't worth the toilet paper it's printed on."

"I especially liked when he called Cora a 'minor player' in ev thaum," Derek says.

Jordan grins. "Ooh, yeah, that was _great_. I'm looking forward to her response."

Danny lets his smile break free. Lydia glares at them all and holds out her hand. "Give us our cookies," she commands, "then go apologize to Stiles."

"Already have," Danny says. He passes the cookies to Derek, who's closest.

"Do it again," Lydia says archly. She takes her bag from Derek and puts it in her desk. She pulls out a notepad and wakes up her computer, a clear sign that her conversation with Danny is over. He nods, gives Derek and Jordan a lazy wave, and walks away.

He doesn't go back to Stiles' office. He _does_ owe Stiles another apology, but Stiles gets twitchy when they talk about Ethan. Danny's trying to be sensitive. So he heads back to the lab and hopes he'll get a chance to check in with Stiles later, make sure they're okay.

The sign outside the computer lab says

DATA AND ANALYTICS

D. MAHEALANI  
I. LAHEY  
D. GREENBERG

All beverages must be in closed containers.

Danny touches that plaque, too, before slipping inside.

Isaac's head is bowed over a printout, his gaze flicking between the paper and his monitors. The edge of a cookie is visible where he's stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. The bag's half empty. _Behold_ , Danny thinks, _the work husband_.

Danny returns Isaac's distracted wave as he settles at his own desk, pulling out the day's assignments. After about ten minutes of quiet, Isaac lifts his head and looks around, blinking the blink of confused computer professionals the world over. "Cookies delivered?" Isaac asks.

"Yup."

"Greenberg still not in?"

"Nope."

"Jesus."

"Yyyup." Danny pauses and then just pushes on. "I broke up with Ethan."

Isaac sits up fast. "What? When? What happened? Are these  _breakup cookies_?"

"We—he stayed last night. After everyone left. I got up this morning make apology cookies, and I—" He shakes his head.

"Is this about what he said to Stiles?" Isaac asks softly.

Danny swallows. "Sort of? I mean, to _all_ of you. Before you all showed up last night, I reminded him that everyone who was going to be there either works in ev thaum or is the plus-one of someone who does, so I would appreciate it if he could tone down the anti-soulmark rhetoric for the evening." He winces, and from the corner of his eye he sees Isaac do the same. Danny rubs his hand over his face. "I asked myself, how many times can I do this, you know? How many times can I stand in my kitchen at 4 a.m. making cookies to apologize for my boyfriend being an ass to my friends? Or will I get to the point where I just... don't see my friends so he can't be an ass to you?"

Isaac whistles. Danny glances at him, but he doesn't seem to have anything else to add.

"Relationships have always been different for me," Danny says. "I'm resigned to that. I just never expected it to be like _this_."

"Shit," Isaac says fervently. Danny agrees. Silence rules the lab for a minute, deep but not uncomfortable. Isaac drums his fingers on the arms of his chair. "I know this is where I'm supposed to offer words of wisdom and comfort. But I'm shit at that. So... wanna come to ours tonight and get tanked?"

" _God,_ yes," Danny says fervently. With that decided, he starts to turn back to his work. Then he pauses and looks over at Isaac. "Uh, Jackson doesn't know yet."

Isaac's eyebrows climb his forehead. "You want me to tell him?"

Danny sighs. "You might as well. Maybe I won't have to put up with his smug I-told-you-so face if he gets to tell me in texts all day."

Isaac laughs long and loud. "God, his I-told-you-so face is _the worst._ "

Danny feels a little better.

*

 

> … _the estimated five percent of the world population who have three-person soulmate Marks. Yet you wouldn't know it from the literature surrounding the soulmate triad referred to as DH/LM/JP, who have, as of this writing, been the subjects of no fewer than ten soulmate studies.…_
> 
> _…The question of researcher bias in these situations has been well-considered elsewhere. But what of **participant** bias? Is it not reasonable to wonder whether these three, having so frequently endured the so-called rigor of soulmate studies, would be able to anticipate the general drift of questions and exercises they can expect? Is it not reasonable to further imagine that these conditioned responses might in turn impact the study administrator? _
> 
> _With LM being herself a renowned, if controversial, soulmate genetics researcher and DH the sibling of another minor player in evolutionary thaumatology, it begs the question of whether we can actually trust research results garnered from tests on anyone who would volunteer for the task so many times._
> 
> -Harris, A. R. (2030, March 15). Participant Bias in Soulmate Studies. _Soulmarks_ , _9_ (2), 4.

*

The first voice Danny hears when he lets himself into Isaac and Jackson's condo is Derek's, which gives him pause. He comes around the wall that separates the entryway from the living room and stops. This is looking less and less like misery drinks with his best friend and his best friend's husband and more like—

"Hi, Danny!" Scott calls cheerily, waving from the floor across from the couch. "Welcome to the intervention!"

Danny groans. Jackson hisses, " _Dumbass,_ " and kicks Scott's shin.

Danny takes stock as he comes around the back of the couch and drops onto the spot Jackson and Isaac have left between them. To his left, Derek and Lydia are sprawled indecorously across the loveseat, relishing being two instead of three for the moment (Jordan must be on-shift) and being _able_ to sprawl anywhere. Scott's on his back on the floor, hands folded over his stomach, looking like he's doing the back float across a tranquil pool.

All of that he could explain away. Derek and Scott are Isaac's best friends, as Danny and Lydia are Jackson's. If it were just them, Danny could convince himself that Isaac thought they should have company while they got shitfaced.

The problem is Erica.

Boyd and Erica spend more time together than any other couple Danny knows, soulmates or otherwise. They're not codependent; they just genuinely enjoy each other's company that much. But Boyd draws a firm line at involvement in what he calls "bullshit schemes." So when Danny finishes his sweep of the room and spots Erica but not Boyd, he knows he's in for it.

And so, although his soul feels like it's cringing away from the answer, he says, "Hey, everybody. What intervention?"

Danny looks toward Scott, but it's Lydia who answers, in the extra-no nonsense tone she uses for her worst nonsense, "You're single again. It's time to give up whatever twisted faux-nobility you're harboring and ask Stiles out."

"Jesus," Danny snaps, glaring around the circle. "I've been single for _one day._ Not even a full one."

Isaac mutters something that sounds like "Bullshit" under his breath. Danny clenches his jaw. As his officemate, Isaac has had a front-row view to the slow but inexorable disintegration of Danny and Ethan's relationship for the past month and a half, but having him actually mention it feels like an ambush.

"We have watched you two jackasses miss each other way too many times," Jackson says. "It goes back to fucking _college_ , and we're sick of it."

"Jackson," Isaac mutters, shooting him a glare that, off course, bounces right off him.

"What?" Jackson demands. "We all know it's true. Look, your bizarre pining crush on Stilinski started, what, sophomore year? But you weren't ready to face your feelings like a grownup, so you started dating Sean." Danny would protest, but, damn him, that's accurate. "You and Sean broke up, you decided you need 'you time,' and by the time your journey of self-discovery and jerking it three times a day—"

"Hey!" Danny protests, not because Jackson's _wrong_ , but because... _really_?

"—was over," Jackson says without pausing, "Stiles was dating Malia. They broke up, but you were with Justin. Then you broke up, but Stiles was with Ben—"

They all sigh dreamily at the reminder of The Ben Years. Even Danny had been half in love with the guy, despite hating him for being with Stiles.

"And most recently was when you started hooking up with Ethan, which was fine, but then you started _dating_ Ethan, which was _less_ fine, and now you're a pair of sadsacks, and we're all fucking tired of watching it."

Erica says a hearty but quiet, "Hear, hear." Danny flips her off.

Isaac rolls his eyes epically. "What Jackson is _trying_ to say," he says with a pointed look that dares his husband to contradict, "is that right now, _today,_ you're both single. I get why you feel like you need time. But I also think, maybe, you don't want to miss this chance again?"

He's right, is the thing. They all are. But they're also wrong, because dating someone who isn't your soulmate is a path littered with giant fucking rocks, as Danny could tell them from years of painful experience. Yeah, he would love to date Stiles, but is it worth risking their friendship over?

"You could tell him," Scott says. Danny looks over sharply. Scott shrugs. "Tell him that you want a shot with him, but that you and Ethan just broke up and you're not sure you're ready. If you ask him to wait, he will. I promise."

Erica makes a delighted cooing sound that Danny ignores. Honestly, he's not sure why she's here, other than that she likes to watch people suffer.

Danny sighs. "If I promise to think about it, will you leave?"

"No," Erica and Lydia say instantly.

He directs his glare mostly toward Lydia, since she's got "ringleader" written all over her. "We're not in high school anymore," he says. "I'm over feeling honored that tenth grade's hottest power couple has deigned to meddle in my business."

"Ninth _and_ tenth," Jackson sniffs.

"My life, my business. I'm grateful that you care, but the meddling stops here."

Danny glares until everyone agrees, and then until Derek confirms that, as far as he can tell, no one was lying. Only then does he let Jackson and Isaac break out the booze.

Initially, Danny stays more sober than he'd wanted to. He's afraid that if he drinks too much, he'll talk about Stiles. After spending fifteen minutes convincing his friends to stop shoving him toward Stiles, the last thing he wants to do is spend an hour rhapsodizing about the shape of the guy's mouth or the exact color of his eyes. It wouldn't be the first time.

Erica tries to rope him into an Ethan-bashing session, but Danny doesn't want that, either. That man has taken up too much real estate in Danny's head already.

Only then someone hands him a drink that tastes like butterscotch and burns like turpentine. Before he knows what's hit him, he's slid from pleasant tipsiness to maudlin drunkenness. When the next moment of clarity hits him, he's sitting at the kitchen table with Derek, sobbing not about Ethan or Stiles, but the sorry state of his soulmark.

"I am thirty-one," he tells Derek, stabbing his fingertip onto the tabletop. It hurts. " _Thirty-one_."

Derek shrugs, because he's a hot asshole werewolf who _doesn't understand._ "I'm thirty-six."

"Yeahbut. Heh. Butt. _You_ are soulbonded to not one but _two_ —" He waggles his index and middle fingers, because visual aids are important when making points like this. "—of the hottest, smartest, nicest people in California." He frowns. "Well. One of the nicest. And Lydia."

Derek smiles softly and then looks around guiltily, as though, even though he's the werewolf here, he's worried that Lydia's heard him smile at her expense.

"Meanwhile _I_ ," Danny continues relentlessly, "am thirty-one years old, and my Mark hasn't goddamn _settled_. Do you know the odds of finding my soulmate now, Derek? _Do you_?"

Derek shakes his head. "Cora could tell you."

"No need," Danny says, more smugly than his situation warrants. "It's three percent. Three percent of people on _the entire planet_ have Marks settle after 30. And out of _them_ , only eight percent find their soulmate. That's sixteen—uh... a hundred and sixty..." He tries to do the math but ultimately flings up his hands. "Not fucking many." His hands thud back down onto the table. "He's probably dead. My soulmate? We might never meet because he's _dead_."

"Okay." Derek nods, distressingly easy-going in the face of Danny's despair. "That raises an obvious question."

Danny squints. He pushes his brain as hard as it'll go right now, but no question, obvious or otherwise, comes to it. "What?" he demands.

"If you're sure you're won't meet your soulmate, why haven't you asked Stiles out?"

Danny looks at his hands. His stomach swims; he's not sure if it's the alcohol or the gut-punch of Derek seeing through him so damned easily. "Derek," he says weakly.

The asshole _keeps talking,_ implacable as the moon that guides him. Usually you can't get more than half a dozen words out of the guy, but now, when Danny really needs him to _shut the fuck up_ , he refuses. "Because the stats are even lower for people with no Mark. You wouldn't have to worry about Stiles' soulmate swooping in and sweeping him away."

"Derek, _please_ ," Danny groans.

"Which _means_ ," Derek says, "that whatever's stopping you... is you."

Having completely wrecked Danny's fucking _life_ , Derek proceeds to sit calmly across the table from him, nursing a bottle of wolfsbane dubbel and giving him a placid and immovable look that says, _I can sit here all night, motherfucker._

Knowing when he's bested, Danny sighs and lays his hands out flat on his legs, fingers splayed. "I—" He swallows. "We _probably_ won't meet our soulmates, but we might. What if we start dating, and I meet my soulmate in a year? If Stiles meets his in five? I don't think I'll be able to make the right choice then." Pulse thundering in his throat, he glances at Derek. "I don't think there'll _be_ a right choice then."

By every accepted standard of human decency, the "right choice" is whoever's at the other end of the swirling, shifting, sepia mess on Danny's arm. People whose soulbond has been broken by anything other than their soulmate's death have a 68 percent suicide rate within five years. The ones who do manage to hold out have a life expectancy ten years shorter than their unbroken counterparts from similar demographics. Danny can't imagine doing that to _anyone_ , let alone the person who's supposedly his best match in the whole of the world.

But letting himself build the relationship with Stiles that he's imagined in idle moments and dark hours since college, and then giving it up? Equally unimaginable.

Derek drains his beer and stands, gently squeezing the side of Danny's neck on his way to the recycling bin. "Sober up. Make a list. You like lists."

There's a dig in there somewhere, Danny's sure, but he's way too drunk and distraught to sort it out. He lets his forehead drop to the table instead. That's the first step to sobering up, right?

Christ, it's gonna be a long night.

*

Saturday is a write-off. Danny spends most of the morning asleep and most of the early afternoon groaning his way through a hangover.

On a whim, he calls his parents and invites them to dinner. They're so surprised that he's actually offended for a minute, but then he opens his calendar app and discovers he hasn't seen them in four months. The roiling in his stomach has nothing to do with his hangover. How did he let himself get so isolated? How did he let Ethan cut him off from his own family? He invites his sister and her husband, too, and then takes a shower as long and scalding as he can stand so he feels less slimy.

Late Sunday morning, after his run, he sits at the breakfast bar, draws two columns on a piece of paper, and labels them " **FOR** " and " **AGAINST** ," like his father taught him. He doesn't let himself agonize over it, just fills the columns quickly and decisively. His pen clatters to the countertop when he's done. He takes a long drink of water to steady his nerves while he reads over what he's written.

" _List the pros in one column and the cons in the other,_ " he remembers his dad saying, as clearly as if it'd been yesterday and not twenty years ago. The problem is that there's no way to weight things. One item gets one space on the list, and _will finally get to know if that spot above his collarbone is as sensitive as it looks_ gets the same consideration as _literally ruining our soulmates' lives_. It's the only item on the "AGAINST" column, but it's a _really fucking big one_.

Only much later, when he's been lying in bed not sleeping sometime after midnight, does Danny realize that _break Stiles' heart_ isn't in his "AGAINST" column. He tries to tell himself he just didn't think of it, but it's a paltry argument, even alone in the dark. What it really means is that, if he were with Stiles and his soulmate finally showed up, he would stay with Stiles.

After that realization, Danny gets up. Now way he's sleeping anymore tonight.

*

> _The Richter Parasite Conjecture was, unsurprisingly, as unpopular with humankind as the heliocentric universe had once been. If we had not been given soulmarks by God, the forces of magic, or even evolution to guide us to our predestined perfect matches but were, in fact, the calling cards of microscopic organisms who'd colonized us for their own ends, where did that leave humanity? No longer the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder, the Conjecture reduced us to walking hookup apps for microbial freeloaders. The Conjecture was dead in the water—and that's_ _before_ _you factor in the flaws in Richter's methodology._
> 
> -Boyd, V. M., IV, & Reyes, E. R. (2022). Swipe Right for Soulmates. In _At the Edges: From Copernicus to Richter, Decentralizing the Human Narrative_ (pp. 212-235). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

*

_Check the Mark._

_Rub the nameplate._

_Knock and enjoy the flailing._

"Danny!" Stiles' smile shouldn't warm Danny's skin this much, should it? His voice shouldn't set Danny's heart fluttering. Danny is an _adult_ , goddamnit. His college crush shouldn't make him feel like he's still _in_ college. Stiles squints at the Ziploc bag in his hand before grabbing his glasses. He looks at the bag again and frowns. "More apology cookies? I didn't even see Ethan this weekend, so unless he's being a dick while I'm not there, which, probably he is, I mean—shit, I don't mean to—I'm sure he must have redeeming qualities, I just—what I'm saying is, you don't have to apologize for things he does when I'm not around."

"The sex was pretty good," Danny says without much thought.

Stiles blinks at him, his usually bright eyes blank with confusion and no small measure of horror.

Danny shrugs. "You said he had to have redeeming qualities. And he does. Mostly sexual ones. He's _amazing_ at oral. And, you know, alpha werewolf, so the _stamina_."

Stiles blinks faster, and a faint pink blush works its way rapidly up his neck and into his cheeks. "I should not be hearing this," he says faintly.

Danny shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut for a second. This isn't the conversation he wants to be having with Stiles right now. "Do you have a minute?" he asks.

Stiles glances at his computer and then at his clock. "Yeah. I got data compiling. I can take ten."

Danny leads them out the no-longer-actually-alarmed security door at the end of the hall and around the corner of the building into the courtyard. He picks a spot near the building, on the other side of the wall from one of the white noise machines. The machines are there to help the werewolves and other supernaturals with heightened senses filter out distractions. But they _also_ help humans have conversations that won't be overheard by supernaturally sensitive ears.

Stiles drops on a bench and waggles his eyebrows at Danny. "So it's one of _those_ conversations, huh?" he asks with the most ridiculous, exaggerated leer, making Danny laugh.

Then Danny sighs and drops next to Stiles on the bench. He looks at his hands in his lap. He's doing that a lot lately. It's not helpful; his hands don't have any answers his mind hasn't come up with already.

f

Stiles stills beside him. "Oh shit," he says quietly. He takes off his glasses and tucks them into his shirt pocket. "It _is_ one of those conversations."

Danny looks up, forces himself to meet Stiles' gaze. "I broke up with Ethan."

If he hadn't been looking at Stiles' eyes, he would've missed the emotions that flashed across them, there and gone in less than a heartbeat. Shock—more than a breakup like this one deserves. Anger—a deep, almost resentful anger. And a bone-deep longing that sends Danny's stomach rocketing like the drop from the top of a tall roller coaster, that makes him think he's standing at the edge of a deeper emotional abyss than he's realized.

Danny blinks, startled, and by the time his eyes open again, the expressions are gone. Stiles is in planning mode, his expression alert and inquisitive and calculating. "Hewitt for sure," he says, nodding decisively. "And... Morrell? No, she'll want _Ethan_ , if you did the dumping. Oh—talk to Romero, too. It's not exactly her area, but since Ethan's a werewolf, it might be close enough that she'll at least want to interview you both."

Danny stares at him. Of all the ways he'd thought Stiles might react, a random list of Institute researchers didn't occur to him. Though he supposes it should've: the Institute's researchers are always looking for subjects for each other's studies. Sometimes Danny wonders how reliable their samples are, given how many participants bounce around between them. "Stiles, what are you talking about?"

"Studies," Stiles says, looking back with confusion equal to Danny's own, "that you're eligible for now."

A sick stone of dismay sinks into Danny's stomach as connections click in his head and he realizes that Stiles _didn't_ name a random bunch of researchers. Hewitt, Morrell, and Romero study soulmates who've broken up.

"Stiles," Danny says carefully, "why do you think I brought you out here to tell you this?"

Stiles shrugs. "Professional courtesy? Or, well, I guess—I mean, we're friends, aren't we?"

Danny feels a yell bubbling up and shoves it down. He turns on the bench, tucking a leg up so he can face Stiles fully. "Stiles, Ethan isn't my soulmate."

Stiles freezes. His expression reminds Danny of a rabbit trying to hide by simply not moving. Danny's thoughts are a jumble of half-remembered conversations and encounters. If Stiles has spent this whole time thinking that Danny and Ethan are soulmates, then a whole lot of things about the past fourteen months suddenly make a hell of a lot more sense.

Stiles switches back into high gear, a tumble of sounds and motion designed to pull focus away from whatever he's _really_ thinking about. "Oh, man, I am _so_ sorry," he babbles. "Like, dude, seriously mortified. I mean, now that I think about it, you never said, but I assumed, and hey, you know what they say about assumptions and everything."

Danny squints and feigns confusion. "That they're highly effective evolutionary adaptations and we shouldn't be hard on ourselves if they're a hard habit to break?"

A startled laugh escapes from Stiles' mouth, and he smiles ruefully. "Touché."

They fall into silence. Stiles likes to claim that, having grown up with a cop for a parent, he's immune to all forms of interrogation. But Danny finds that he's one of the easiest of their friends to break; you just have to be quiet long enough for the silence to get to him.

"He's such an _asshole_ ," Stiles blurts not twenty seconds later. Danny hides his smile, not sure Stiles would take it the right way. "And I mean, obviously, _I_ don't get any say in who you date, but you're so _nice_ , and he's so _not_ , and I thought—" He looks at Danny quickly and then away. "Thinking you were soulmates was the only way it made sense that you were with him." Stiles might not be the nicest guy on the planet, but he would never say "instead of me." But Danny hears it anyway, in the weighty pause at the end of Stiles' sentence and the faint, embarrassed blush that creeps over his cheeks.

Danny takes pity on him. "Ethan had a familial bond. His soulmate was his twin brother, Aiden. Aiden died in a motorcycle crash when they were 21. Ethan's really never recovered."

Stiles' mouth drops open, and his gaze is wide and horrified. "Christ," he says. "No wonder he hates us." He shakes his head, either clearing thoughts of Ethan from it or moving on to his next confusion. "So, and I mean, I know it's none of my business, but... what about your soulmate?"

Danny's eyes widen. "Stiles. For real?"

"What?"

"Do you really not know?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Obviously not."

Danny snorts an astonished laugh at the absurdity of the entire conversation. "I am the longest-running participant in Kira's study."

Stiles jerks, eyes wide. "Kira's study on Unsettled Marks?"

"Yeah." Danny pulls up his wrist cuff so Stiles can see the Mark. It's no discernible shape right now, just a turbulent blob of sepia. Stiles extends a finger toward it, and it flows around his skin like it always does when anyone beside Danny tries to touch it.

"Damn," Stiles breathes, awed. He suddenly realizes his faux pas, but he doesn't jerk his hand away, just makes and holds eye contact with Danny while he slowly withdraws.

"Yeah," Danny says. He's still holding eye contact; his mouth is dry and his skin is tingling. The word comes out low and raspy instead of wry. He breathes deep and feels the sharpness of this moment like a fulcrum his life pivots on. "Now that that's straightened out, will you _please_ go on a date with me?"

Stiles' eyes pop wide, and the fingers of his right hand push instinctually under the weathered leather cuff he wears on his left wrist. Danny tries not to stare, but even the smallest glimpse of the empty skin under the cuff leaves him breathless, his heart clenching at the raw vulnerability of that pale expanse. Stiles swallows. "If we—if I were to—I mean, not that dating you would be _settling_ , Jesus, anyone would be lucky to date you, but I mean—" He licks his lips and makes a helpless fluttering gesture with the fingers of his left hand. "Danny, my entire career is built around how the Unmarked find our soulmates. If I—" He stops abruptly and fiddles with his cuff.

Now Danny's the one jerking back. "Are you serious?" he demands. "You'd rather not date me than lose face in your research?"

"That research is my _life's work_!" Stiles snaps back.

Something fierce and determined sparking in Stiles' eyes calls an answering flame in Danny. He wants to push at Stiles and have Stiles push back until somebody bends. Until somebody _breaks._ "If you want to focus on your work, fine," he says, voice hard, "but don't shut yourself off from the _possibility_ —"

"If my soulmate showed up—if _yours_ —"

" _I'd let you go!_ " The fight drains out of Danny as the truth of it hits him. Because Stiles is right. His research revolves around soulmates in the Unmarked population. If he found his soulmate and rejected the bond, his reputation in the scientific community would plummet. Danny could never be the cause of that. "I'd let you go," he says again, quietly. "Or... or we'd talk about polyamory. We'd figure it out. Together. All three of us. Or four. Or... _whatever_. But I'm not—" He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm not asking for forever. Are you willing to give me a _chance_?"

The tension eases out of Stiles' shoulders. Something small and hopeful flickers in his eyes, and a hint of his usual smirk plays at the corner of his lips. "A chance, huh?"

Danny offers a small smile in return—just enough to show the dimples. They're among his best features, and he is not above shamelessly exploiting them. "Just one."

Stiles is silent for a minute. It's not tense or awkward, just thoughtful. Danny's waited since college. He can wait five minutes more.

Finally, Stiles rubs his palms on the leg of his pants. "Okay," he says, nodding. "Okay, Mahealani, one chance." He grins sharply and sticks out his hand. "Make it a good one."

Danny snorts but takes Stiles' hand. Stiles' skin is soft and warm, and Danny lets the touch linger. He keeps his expression open so Stiles can see how much this simple contact is affecting him. As far as Danny's concerned, his one chance starts now. "Saturday, nine a.m.," he says. "I'll pick you up. Wear comfortable shoes."

Stiles' jaw drops. "You've thought about this," he says. It's not a question, and there's awe in his voice.

Danny shrugs. "Don't tell me you don't," he says, his tone gently teasing. "Planned what date you'd take someone on if you got the chance with them."

He's not fishing, he swears, doesn't need to hear Stiles say he's planned a date for them. And all he feels is a stab of empathy when Stiles immediately says, "I don't. I don't let myself." Stiles studies Danny's face. "What? What are you thinking?"

Danny shakes his head. "That you've given up a lot for an institution that I'm not sure deserves you."

Stiles shrugs. "I love the research, even if it doesn't love me back."

Danny laughs helplessly. He knows a thing or two about that.

*

Long past the coltish clumsiness of his teens and early twenties, Stiles moves with a long-legged grace that makes Danny's breath catch in his throat. He hops into the car in black jeans that do _criminal_ things for his ass, a maroon button-down open at the throat, and black Converse hi-tops with orange flames, which Danny notices as Stiles leans forward to settle his messenger bag on the floor. When Danny raises an eyebrow, Stiles shrugs. "They're the most comfortable shoes I own," he says. "I regret nothing."

Danny nods and points to the drink in the cup holder. "That's for you. Breakfast in the glove compartment, if you want it."

Stiles raises his eyebrows and picks up the drink, sniffing at it. "Going all out, Mahealani."

Danny shrugs. "You knew I had plans."

Stiles takes a sip, and his eyebrows shoot up further. "Vanilla chai."

"Too sweet?"

"Perfect, actually." Stiles takes a longer drink, and his eyes never leave off studying Danny's face. "Most people would've gotten me coffee."

Danny rolls his eyes. "Most people haven't noticed that you never drink coffee before noon."

Stiles' gaze sharpens. "Should I be worried that you _have_ noticed that?"

"You can if you want," he says airily. "But why bother, when there are so many other things to worry about?"

"Truth," Stiles says, nodding. "Climate change."

"US foreign policy in South Africa."

"What the hell is going on with Jackson's hair."

Danny coughs on his laugh. Stiles puts his chai in the cup holder and pops open the glove compartment. "Wasn't sure about breakfast," Danny says, "but I've seen what you do to nachos, so I took a shot."

Stiles unpeels the foil wrapper, peeks under the edge of the tortilla, and shouts gleefully. "Is this an everything burrito from TJ's?"

"Good choice?"

"You're not half bad at this wooing shit." Stiles says this around an enormous bite. Danny firmly tells himself that he is _not_ charmed.

"It's an hour drive." Danny gestures at his phone, already docked and jacked into the stereo. "Pick some music."

Stiles whistles low. "See, that? That is high-grade woo right there." Danny snorts. Stiles scrolls through Danny's music library, making little noises that Danny can't interpret. He chooses the new Ants and Uncles album, which is more folktronica than Danny would've pegged him as liking, but he immediately starts singing along with "Seedy Motel," so it's not a stab-in-the-dark choice.

They're mostly quiet on the drive down. Stiles works doggedly through his burrito, and they sip their drinks. Sometimes they sing along with the music, and sometimes they fall silent, watching the fog burn off around them.

At first it's unnerving, watching _silence_ and _Stiles Stilinski_ occupy the same space. But if Danny remembers one thing from all the times Scott and Derek have hauled them into the woods for pack bonding time, it's that nothing makes Stiles quiet faster than the great outdoors. Apparently that holds as true through the window of an electric hybrid as it does in the middle of the Beacon Hills Preserve.

Danny feels like a treasure-hunter. Like he's digging up gems of details about Stiles and wants to hide them away, keep them for himself.

Stiles is speechless for a full ten seconds when they get to the Cartoon Art Museum. Danny watches proudly as Stiles' jaw works for several seconds before he rasps out, in a voice gone gratifyingly low and rough, "Oh, Danny-boy, you booked a first-class ticket on the Panty-Dropper Express."

Danny chokes and feels his face burning hot as he tries desperately to not wonder about Stiles' underwear. He doesn't know what on earth made him think that Stiles would sit back and let himself be passively wooed. Every inch of ground they gain today, Stiles will make them _work_ for. Danny bounces forward, thrilled by the prospect.

The museum is small, but they take two full hours to go through it. Stiles is unsurprisingly thorough, reading every word of every placard next to every piece. Sometimes he pulls out his phone to look up more information about a work or its artist; sometimes he already knows. He regales Danny with most of it but periodically shakes his head and shoves the phone back into his pocket as though whatever he's read has personally offended him. It's adorable.

Halfway through, Stiles looks at Danny from the corner of his eye. "You haven't told me to shut up yet," he says. It takes Danny a second to place it, but Stiles' tone is accusatory.

Danny keeps his own expression and tone as neutral as possible when he replies, "Why would I?"

Danny's never seen someone shrug aggressively, but Stiles manages it. "Most people I've dated would've by now."

Danny shelves his anger at those people, since none of them are currently in front of him and available for punching. "Their loss," he says. He means it with complete sincerity. Not only does he feel every bit as enlightened and entertained by Stiles' commentary as by the official material by the artworks, but also, this is Stiles at his most Stilesean. Anyone who doesn't want that has no business dating the guy.

Stiles' smile turns pleased and surprised, and Danny grins to himself.

They finish at the museum just after noon. They walk out of the building and blink against the bright sunlight. There's a cloudless blue sky and a slight breeze, and the air is warm but not hot. Danny tilts his face toward the sun and beams when he catches sight of Stiles doing the same from the corner of his eye.

"Lunch?" Danny asks.

Stiles nods and starts walking them toward the car. "You have anything in mind?"

Danny seesaws his hand back and forth. "I had a vague idea. Did you want something in particular?"

"Actually, yeah." Stiles pulls out his phone, and Danny catches sight of the map app before Stiles tilts the screen away. "Trust me?"

Danny smiles gently and starts the car. "You know I do."

Stiles smiles back. "Yeah, I do."

Danny's pleased when Stiles' directions bring them to the Ferry Plaza farmers market. They assemble a hodgepodge of a lunch from several of the food trucks at the market's edge, and Stiles insists that they eat at a table in the performance area. Stiles chair-dances along with the Chicago blues trio on the postage stamp-sized stage, his body physically incapable of holding still when it can feel a beat.

Danny had planned on heading back to Beacon Hills after lunch, but Stiles insists on walking the whole market. They walk so close that theirs shoulders bump constantly and their hands keep brushing. Danny isn't sure if Stiles is doing it on purpose, and by the fourth time he's so sick of the uncertainty that he grabs Stiles' hand and hopes like hell. Stiles grins wider and adjusts their grip so it's more secure. Danny's heart soars.

Danny's got a good eye for produce—one of those weird talents you discover about yourself entirely by accident—and he's carrying an enormous bag full of salad greens, radishes, and garlic scapes. Stiles seems delighted by this development. Danny doesn't realize his mistake until they reach the exit. "I'm not ready for our date to be over," he says, "but I want to get this stuff home and into the refrigerator."

Stiles squeezes his hand and then lets go, pointing down the row they just came up. "You eat meat, right?" When Danny snickers, Stiles shoves him hard with his shoulder and says, "We passed a place back there with good-looking bison steaks. Why don't I pick us up a couple, and we can go back to your place and throw them on the grill."

Danny checks his phone. "It'll be awfully early for dinner."

"I'd want the steaks to marinate for at least an hour," Stiles says. "We can find a way to pass the time."

Danny's mind's eye offers him an image of Stiles naked in his bed (he's never seen Stiles naked, but he has a _very_ good imagination). He glances over and sees innocent playfulness in Stiles' expression. He reroutes his thoughts with a put-upon sigh. "You're using me for Blue-time, aren't you?"

Stiles clasps a hand dramatically over his chest. "I haven't seen her in _aaages_!" he wails as he leads them back toward the bison stall.

They talk more on the drive back to Beacon Hills. Stiles has Danny in stitches with stories about the mischief he and his mom used to get into before she got sick, the number of times the newly elected sheriff almost had to arrest his own wife for disorderly conduct. In return, Danny paints pictures of life in Waimea: climbing the kekoa tree in his grandmother's yard with his sister and cousins, letting the thundering tide of the Pacific lull him to sleep.

They delve deeper, darker. The number of nights in childhood that Stiles had cried himself to sleep because, in spite of the research, the majority of Americans still believe that the Unmarked have no soulmates and aren't shy about expressing that belief even to a child. The unethical college professor who'd tried to coerce Danny into a study promising to force his Mark to settle, even with no soulmate in sight. The deep unease they feel that the Argent Institute owes its renown to a homicidal madman who studied evolutionary thaumatology as part of an anti-werewolf eugenics program. It reminds Danny of  college, when he and Lydia would stay up all night sharing dark secrets and darker chocolate.

Blue bounds up to them the instant Danny opens the door. Stiles drops to the floor beside her, cooing, "Hello, the prettiest! Who's the best girl? That's right; you are! Blue the Bluetick Coonhound!"

Danny rolls his eyes as he steps over both of them to get to the kitchen. "My four-year-old niece named her," he calls. "We count ourselves lucky she isn't named Dog."

Stiles eventually pulls himself off the floor and joins Danny in the kitchen, Blue clicking along behind him. She bounces from human to human, hoping for affection, which she gets by the bucketful, and scraps, which she doesn't get at all. Stiles and Danny move around each other with an ease as terrifying as it is calming, as though they've been doing this for years—Danny's hand brushing across Stiles' hip to move him out of the way, Stiles pressing a feather-light kiss to the hinge of Danny's jaw as a distraction while while he steals radish slices from the cutting board. Danny swats his hand without force; Stiles winks and dances away backwards. Danny's pulse is racing but his heart's never been so at ease.

The steaks have 45 more minutes to marinate by the time the vegetables are taken care of. Danny lifts Blue's leash off its hook and waggles it at Stiles. "Want to take her for her w-a-l-k?" he asks.

Stiles laughs. "Leashes?" he says. "We don't need no stinkin' leashes." He leads Blue into the back yard, finds her favorite rope toy, and engages her in a frantic and complex-looking game that tires Danny out just from watching.

Thirty minutes later, Blue's flopped on the ground with her head between her paws, panting and gazing adoringly up at Stiles. Stiles is slouched in an adirondack chair, talking to the dog about who knows what.

Danny heads into the yard and sits in the chair next to Stiles. Blue gives him a betrayed look, clearly wanting to know why she doesn't get to play like that all the time. "You trying to make my dog like you more than me, Stilinski?" Danny asks.

Stiles grins, remorseless. "I've got to be _somebody's_ favorite."

"You're mine," Danny admits quietly, his heart in his throat. With an attempt at nonchalance that's not fooling anyone, he drops his hand into the space between the chairs. Stiles immediately reaches over and takes it in his own, lacing their fingers together. They sit in comfortable silence until Stiles rouses himself to get the steaks.

Danny's had short-lived relationships that crackled with pure electricity. He's had longer relationships that have slowly fizzled into stale inertia. But he thinks, as he watches Stiles try to set himself on fire at the grill, that he's never had _this_ , something that feels at once exciting and sustainable, tethering him perfectly between sky and ground.

Stiles pulls the steaks off the grill and takes them inside. He puts them under foil on the counter and fixes Danny with a stern look. "Those have to sit for five minutes."

Danny looks at Stiles—really _looks_ at him—and a curl of want coils low in his gut. Five minutes isn't much, but it's enough to get his hands on some skin.

Danny crowds Stiles against the counter. Stiles beams at him and actually fucking bats his eyelashes. "Why, Mr. Mahealani, fancy meeting you here."

Danny grins slow and sharp. "Dr. Stilinski," he all but purrs. He leans forward until his breath brushes Stiles' ear. Stiles shivers against him. "What's a guy like you doing in a nice place like this?"

Stiles' laugh peals like a bell, but it's breathy, out of control. "Come here," he murmurs. Danny goes gladly.

Kissing Stiles is like diving into a hot spring, fiery and slick. Full lips, an insistent tongue. Long, nimble fingers twisting in his hair. A firm ass pressing back against his hands. Danny must be getting oxygen somehow, but he's dizzy, brain whirling, skin tingling, and he wants to fall further, fall all the way down.

Danny feels like only seconds have passed, but something beeps, and when Stiles reluctantly pulls away with a small kiss to the corner of Danny's lips, he realizes it must be the five-minute timer for the steaks.

They sit in the nook and eat, and it's… weird. Stiles keeps the conversation light, surface-level. It's perfectly acceptable first date conversation, which, technically, is what this is. But they've also known each other since sophomore year of college, when the door to their frat house had swung open during a party and Jackson had groaned, "Oh, fuck, not _that_ asshole." Danny had looked up instantly, wanting to see who could piss Jackson off enough to push him from his customary apathy into actual disdain. Twelve years later, Danny would like to think that they're well past small talk.

Stiles is rambling his way through an anecdote about Lydia eviscerating one of her classmates for his lazy dismissal of the Richter Parasite Conjecture—an incident, as it happens, that Danny was there for and Stiles was not—when it hits Danny: Stiles is nervous. Danny's been on cloud fucking 9 since the kiss, and he'd allowed himself to forget that Stiles is invested in things _not_ going well between them.

The realization brings Danny back to Earth with a thump, but he reaches across the table and covers Stiles' hand with his own. "Stiles," he says, "you're allowed to be happy. Even if it's just for a while."

By the time the dishwasher's loaded, Stiles has relaxed enough to join Danny on the couch for a movie. They choose _Black Panther 3_ , because everyone knows it's the best in the series. And also because they've each seen it at least a dozen times, so it's fine that they're barely thirty minutes in before Stiles' hand is creeping up Danny's inseam. By the one-hour mark, Stiles is straddling Danny's lap, grinding down with slow, steady rolls of his hips that rob Danny of all higher brain function and leave him panting desperate near-kisses against Stiles' lips.

After fifteen minutes of that, Danny's blood is singing through his veins and his lips won't stop buzzing. Stiles look half-feral, and Danny feels a shocking spike of possessive pride. Stiles wrenches his mouth away with a gasp, and Danny has to stare in awe for a minute at the kiss-bruised swell of his lips and the wild mess of his hair. Stiles grasps Danny's wrist and leans backward, flinging his other hand out to grab at the remote. The motion pushes Stiles' hips up and draws his jeans taut across the obvious bulge. Danny groans, and the smug smile Stiles gives him in response shoots straight to his own cock.

Danny hauls Stiles back to him and into another messy, heated kiss. "Bed," he murmurs against Stiles' lips.

Stiles feigns outrage. "On a first date?"

Danny chuckles. "By my count, we've been on at least three dates today."

"Well, in _that_ case—" Danny's gratified when Stiles falls on his ass on the coffee table in his eagerness to stand. They're both laughing as Danny helps yank him upright, and, damn, this is going to be _fun_.

Stiles runs warm. Danny's always known this, but he hasn't considered—hasn't _let_ himself consider—what it might be like to have that warmth so close to him. To feel it shiver beneath his fingers and tongue, to chase it in rivulets to the hollow of a collarbone. To sink slowly into it while it rakes down his back. To hear it gust across his ear as bitten-off curses and half-moans of his name. To watch it explode, finally, arched and panting, flowing over his hand like lava.

It's not a fire that destroys. It's a fire that tempers, that burns away the dross and leaves behind only what is to the purpose. Only what is strongest and most dear. It's a fire that hollows Danny out and leaves a clear space for new life to grow.

*

Danny wakes up just after two, when Blue slinks onto her usual spot at the end of the bed. He's lying mostly on his stomach, though his legs are turned sideways in a way his spine will surely protest in the morning. Stiles is sprawled on top of him, warmer than any blanket, and he's not snoring, exactly, but loud snuffling sounds are happening next to Danny's ear. Danny feels overheated and gross, covered in sweat and dried come. He hasn't been this uncomfortable in a long time.

He hasn't been this content in a lot longer.

He eases himself out from under Stiles on his back and Blue on his feet, wincing as he straightens and his back protests the motion. In the bathroom he relieves himself and wipes himself down as best he can with a warm washcloth. He wets a second cloth and leaves the bathroom, intending to do the same for Stiles. A quick detour to the living room nets him Stiles' bag, the glasses in their usual pocket. He walks back into the bedroom and freezes.

In Danny's absence, Stiles has flopped onto his back. A thin sliver of moonlight slices through a gap in the curtains, turning his pale skin opalescent. His mouth has flopped open, and Danny thinks he might be drooling. His snuffles have turned into definite snores. He's flung his arm over his head in a dramatic pose that guarantees both griping about sore shoulders and a faceful of armpit in Danny's near future. Danny clutches the dripping washcloth and thinks, distinctly and helplessly, _I'm going to fall in love with you._

*

 

> _Despite what popular media portrays, incidents of "love at first sight"—known among researchers as Simultaneous Mark Events (SMEs), in which imaginal fixation and chromatic onset occur simultaneously—rarely occurred before the 1990. Although data is scarce, prior to the beginning of the Information Age, SMEs are estimated to have occurred in less than .01% soulmate pairs and triads._
> 
> _Conservative commentators try to claim that modern technology and "lifestyles" are ruining the sanctity of soulmate bonding. However, the global availability of the internet in the twenty-first century has actually increased SMEs. Message boards, video calls, and social media help individuals become fairly well acquainted with each other before meeting in person. This allows that initial physical meeting to serve not as a first encounter but as the logical progression of weeks, months, or years of interaction and growing intimacy._
> 
> -Hale, C. M. (2026) _Your Mark Will Freeze Like That And Other Lies Your Teachers Told You: Sorting Fact from Fallacy in Soulmark Lore_. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

*

Blue, of course, doesn't know the difference between a weekday and a weekend. She's at the bedside, tail whipping back and forth, leash in her mouth, at 6:15, like she is every morning. Danny groans and takes the leash, slowly peeling himself out of Stiles' grasp and pushing himself upright.

He twists back around and leans down, brushing his lips over Stiles'. "I'm taking Blue for a run," he murmurs. "Want to come?"

Stiles' eyes stay closed, and his breathing barely changes as he says what may be "Fuck off" in Polish. Danny's pretty sure he's still asleep.

Stiles is still asleep when Danny and Blue get back from their run. He's still asleep when Danny gets out of the shower. He's still asleep when Danny pours himself coffee, heats water for tea, and carries both mugs into the bedroom. He _finally_ stirs when Danny is standing in front of his closet, feeling uncharacteristically dissatisfied with every shirt he owns, although the only way Danny knows this is that he hears rustling behind him and turns around in time to see a hand snake out from under the covers and yank the mug in. Danny laughs softly and turns back to his shirts.

"Pink polo." Stiles' voice is raspy with sleep and muffled by the covers, yet there's a note of command in it. "I _really_ like what it does for your arms."

Danny feels himself blushing but shakes his head. "I don't like pink with orange."

There's more rustling behind him, and when he turns to look, Stiles' head has popped out from under the covers. His hair is mussed and his eyes are hazy, unfocused without his glasses. "Okay," he says slowly. "That's fair. But what's orange that you have to coordinate with?"

Danny huffs and waves his arm, still uncuffed after his shower, at Stiles. " _This_ , obviously."

There is an absolute frenzy of sound and motion as Stiles fumbles his glasses on, scrambles out of the bed, and staggers over to Danny. Blue jumps up and bounds around Danny's feet, yipping excitedly though she's not sure why.

Stiles has Danny's forearm in a vise grip, holding it so close to his eyes that the frames of his glasses poke into Danny's skin. Danny's mind is whirling, it doesn't make _sense_ , he can't—

"Was it like this yesterday?" Stiles demands, waving Danny's arm like a ragdoll. "I don't think it was like this yesterday. I mean, granted, I was paying attention to other parts of you, but I would've noticed _this_. Probably."

"I—" Danny blinks down at his arm. "No. I don't think it was."

Jesus, that's... that's his _Mark_. It's the same swirling mess it's always been. Only now, instead of sepia, it's a riot of color—mostly orange, but shot through with thin lines of purple, white, and charcoal gray. It rolls around his forearm like it's so fucking glad to exist that it can't sit still.

"Okay." Stiles runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in even more directions. He's really got the mad scientist look down this morning. "Okay, we can figure this out." He takes half a step back and peers at Danny. He's obviously excited about this development, but it's not the passionate, kiss-filled excitement that Danny might've hoped for—that he'd be indulging in right now, if Stiles would stand still for half a damn second. In fact—and he's no expert on Stiles' expressions, at least not yet—Danny might say that Stiles looks disappointed. Stiles paces a few steps away. "Someone from the farmer's market? I mean, no offense, but you seemed right at home with that hippie granola crap. I mean, it could be someone from the museum, but we were together an awfully long time after that, and one of us would've noticed—what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Danny stares at him, no words coming to his lips. Stiles can't be this oblivious, can he? Or is his self-esteem really this shot, that the obvious answer doesn't occur to him? Danny carefully removes his arm from Stlies' grip so he can take both of Stiles' hands in both of his own. "Stiles," he says, looking steadily into Stiles' eyes, "it's _you_."

Stiles' jaw drops, and his hands flail. Not his best look, but, heaven help him, Danny doesn't find it _un_ attractive. "Did you hit your head?" Stiles finally asks. "I knew that headboard trick was a risky move, but I figured you were coordinated enough—"

"Stiles. _Look_." Danny holds out his arm. He takes Stiles' chin in his hand and turns his face gently so he has to look at the giddy swirls of orange. "Chromatic onset, not imaginal fixation. I didn't meet my soulmate yesterday. I started to fall in love with them. With _you_."

Stiles looks at Danny's face. He looks at Danny's arm. He looks back at Danny's face. "Holy shit," he whispers.

Danny grins. "Yeah."

" _Holy shit!"_ Stiles says again, louder.

Danny grins wider. " _Yeah_."

Stiles stumbles forward and yanks Danny into a kiss. It's rough and uncoordinated, smashed lips and clacking teeth, until Danny tilts his head. He feels overwhelmed again, full to combustion, but not with lust now: with hope and fondness and—yeah, he'll say it, at least in his own mind—love.

Stiles pulls away when he starts smiling too broadly to reality sustain a kiss. "You know what this means," he says, tone solemn despite his joyful expression.

Danny tries to do likewise but thinks he's failing. "What does it mean?"

"New study!" Stiles crows.

Danny's expression slackens. Okay, that is… not at all what he expected. " _Stiles,_ " he groans.

"No, no listen," Stiles says eagerly. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet now. "Because I have _questions._ Sooo many question. Like, if it's me, why didn't your Mark settle when we met?"

Danny wants to sob in frustration. But at the same time, he feels like the Cosmos is testing him: _you wanted your soulmate; well, here he is._ "You don't have a Mark," he says, because it's the most obvious reason he can see.

Danny's a data guy. He's not as good with theory and conjecture. But he's walked in on enough late-night think tanks—Lydia, Stiles, and Cora, often Kira, sometimes Boyd and Erica, slouched around Lydia's office clutching slices of pizza or cold Chinese takeout containers, casually recharting the course of ev thaum research—to know that Stiles works best when he has someone to talk to, and that that someone often serves mostly as a wall for him to bounce his wilder notions off of. If they're going to be together ( _dear lord, they're going to be together_ ), then Danny accepts that he'll sometimes play this role. He just hadn't anticipated playing it _right now_.

Stiles warms to the suggestion instantly. "Yeah, but—" He paces the small space from the closet to the head of the bed. He's still wearing only his glasses and doesn't seem to notice. "Wouldn't that seem to suggest that communication between Marks is via the Marks themselves, rather than the people they're attached to?"

Danny shrugs. "Sure. I thought we knew that already."

"It's been proposed but never proven," Stiles says with a wave of his hand. Then he freezes. Danny sneaks a glance at his Mark, which looks like an orange approximation of _The Scream_. "Danny," Stiles says eagerly, grabbing his hand, "we can do it. We can prove the Richter Parasite Conjecture!" He swoops in for a kiss so fast that Danny barely has time to engage with it.

Danny laughs and kisses him again, because he can. He takes Stiles' hands, runs his thumb over the empty space on Stiles' arm where a soulmark would've gone, and says, "Stiles, I'm excited about this, too, you know I am. And I was hoping that, for one day, we could spend our time being excited about the _we're soulmates_ part, and leave the science for tomorrow."

Stiles' eyes widen. "Danny, you're a genius," he breathes. He kisses Danny and starts backing them toward the bed. "I've always said that, you know." Another kiss. "That Mahealani, he's a genius."

"Glad you've noticed," Danny says dryly and tips them onto the mattress. As they fall, he catches a quick glimpse of his soulmark. It looks like a happy orange cat; rolling on its back demanding love. Danny's happy to oblige.

For some people, this is the definition of a nightmare: a Mark that never settles, never shows them who their soulmate _is_ at their core. But Danny thinks this may be better. He's always going to _know_ —how Stiles is feeling, what he's thinking about. When Stiles can't say it for himself, Danny's arm will say it for him.

Part of Danny's mind wants to rush ahead. He pictures them in five years, in twenty—a house, another dog or two, surrounded by nieces and nephews, _maybe_ an adopted kid or two of their own. Instead, he lets himself stay _here, now_ , soft cotton under his back, Stiles' warm hands reaching for him.

They have so much time to make up for. They have all the time in the world.

*

 

> _"The talk you're about to hear is pretty out there. Usually, researchers like me—especially from one of the preeminent Evolutionary Thaumatology and Soulmark Studies research institutions in North America—stand up here and give dry academic talks with slideshows full of data and graphs, right? I, uh, I do have slides. They're mostly honeymoon pictures. But seriously, my boss was about ready to spit nails when I told her I'd agreed to give this talk._
> 
> _"The thing is, the situation my soulmate and I are in—hey, can we get the camera on him for a minute? Yeah, there he is! That's my husband Danny. Gorgeous, right? Okay, enough of him, he gets to talk later, pay attention to me. Anyway, our situation is really unusual._
> 
> _In the whole of soulmark history—about twelve thousand years, as far as we know—it's only been **seventy-five years** since Takagawa and Singh proved that the Unmarked even **have** soulmates. Seventy-five years! Out of twelve thousand! Hundreds of generations of people with no Mark, thinking there was no one out there for them, which, uh, don't think too hard about that; you'll just get depressed._
> 
> _Then came Stasinopoulos. His study was utter shite, but no one knew that at the time, and because of him, we spent forty years assuming that an Unmarked person could **only** be matched with another Unmarked person. _
> 
> _And then along comes me. An Unmarked guy who manages to make it to age 32 before discovering that my soulmate is not Unmarked, but Unsettled. Suggesting that his Mark hadn't settled because **I** didn't have a Mark for it to settle **against**. Communication between Marks, not Marked. Sometimes I still feel like a complete ass when I think about that first morning, when I was more excited about the scientific implications than the fact that I'd **found my soulmate**. Fortunately for me, Danny is a patient and understanding guy._
> 
> __
> 
> _So I did what any good scientist would do: I proposed a study. Soulbonds between Unmarked and Unsettled. A more rigorous and methodically sound test of the Richter Conjecture. I was **so pumped.**_
> 
> __****_ _
> 
> _No one responded to the call for research subjects. **No one**. And, believe me, The Argent Institute is **very** good at finding research subjects. But there was no one. No one else in the entire world said they were in Danny and my position. And we think it's because they don't know our situation is even a possibility._
> 
> _Yet. They don't know it **yet**. But they're about to hear about it. You're **all** about to hear about it. That's why Danny and I are here today." _
> 
> -Stilinski, M., & Mahealani, D.K. (2031, December). _Stiles Stilinski and Danny Mahealani: Happy Orange Cat and Other Oddities of an Unmarked/Unsettled Bond, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Richter Parasite Conjecture._ [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stilinski_mahealani_happy_orange_cat

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos appreciated. 
> 
> If you enjoyed the fic, I'm probably mumbling something similar to it [on tumblr](http://hugealienpie.tumblr.com/).


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